1st Edition

Cultural Diplomacy and the Heritage of Empire Negotiating Post-Colonial Returns

By Cynthia Scott Copyright 2020
216 Pages 57 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

216 Pages 57 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

216 Pages 57 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

C ultural Diplomacy and the Heritage of Empire analyzes the history of the negotiations that led to the atypical return of colonial-era cultural property from the Netherlands to Indonesia in the 1970s. By doing so, the book shows that competing visions of post-colonial redress were contested throughout the era of post-World War II decolonization. Considering the danger this precedent posed... Read more

Introduction: the Netherlands and Indonesia: a rare success in the history of post-colonial returns



1 Colonial redress or post-colonial cooperation?: competing visions of cultural diplomacy in 1949



2 Cultural diplomacy at a crossroads: the Dutch struggle with Sukarno’s Indonesia, 1950–65



3 Cultural relations as development aid: reconciliation with Suharto’s Indonesia, 1966–70



4 Returning cultural property: continuity and change in the cultural diplomacy of the Dutch center-left, 1970–79



5 Post-colonial cultural property return debates since the 1970s: the Dutch-Indonesian case as historical lens



Conclusion



Index

Biography



Cynthia Scott is a historian and heritage scholar who earned a PhD in History from Claremont Graduate University in Los Angeles, California. Her career began at the Getty Information Institute, a former operating program of the J. Paul Getty Trust, where she managed numerous projects and helped lead a collaborative endeavor with UNESCO, the Council of Europe, INTERPOL and the International Council of Museums, that developed “Object ID”—the international documentation standard for identifying cultural objects in the event of theft.